Don’t write off St. John’s getting a high seed in NCAA Tournament after signature win over Marquette

If there were any doubts or questions about St. John’s being a legitimate force in college basketball this season, there aren’t any more.

Even after the Red Storm had piled up 19 wins, climbed to sole possession of first place in the Big East and ascended to a No. 12 ranking, one thing was missing: a signature win. Well now they have one after winning a hotly-contested matchup with 11th-ranked Marquette, 70-64, before a raucous Garden crowd of 16,521 in the biggest regular-season game the program has played in more than a quarter-century, since they were No. 9 and lost to top-ranked Connecticut on Jan. 30, 1999.

St. John’s has flaws when it comes to shooting and Marquette did a good job exploiting them. The Red Storm missed 13 three-pointers (3 for 16) and 14 free throws (17 for 31). But as it has been doing all season, they showed that with taut defense and voracious rebounding, those flaws don’t have to be fatal.

With the Golden Eagles dead set on putting the Storm on the free-throw line, St. John’s made seven of eight in the final 3:10. And Marquette couldn’t penetrate the defense and missed its last seven shots in the game. The Storm have won nine in a row and 15 of 16.

St. John’s (20-3, 11-1) still has eight games left on the schedule and the Big East Tournament before Selection Sunday, but if it can stay the gritty group that clawed its way to finding a victory as it did against the Golden Eagles, there’s no reason to think it’s not capable of securing a top four seeding in one of the NCAA Tournament regions.

While St. John’s has been racking up the victories, the absence of a signature win has clearly been stuck in some minds. Although the Red Storm appeared on the ballots of all 62 AP poll voters, 31 of them had St. John’s ranked No. 13 or worse.

And the so-called “experts” who project the tournament field also seemed to take note of that box not being checked. According to Bracketmartix.com, St. John’s is in the field in all 91 sites they are tracking, but most had them as a No. 5 or No. 6 seeding in one of the four regions. Marquette, on the other hand, has been projected as a No. 2 or No. 3 seed mostly because it had already won five Quad I games including victories over three nationally-ranked teams: No. 7 Purdue, No. 18 Maryland and No. 21 Wisconsin.

Going into Tuesday night’s game, the Red Storm’s most noteworthy victory was last month’s 82-72 win over Xavier in Cincinnati. In the Storm’s 1-3 record in Quad I games, that was it.

St. John’s might have had a better win on its resume if had prevailed over Baylor in the Baha Mar Hoops Classic back in November. However, that opportunity went by the boards when a clock malfunction at the end of the second overtime left enough time for Jeremy Roach to get off a buzzer-beating three-pointer for a 99-98 Bears win.

Storm coach Rick Pitino said that result would “stick in my throat for the rest of the season” and sure enough, he was still talking about it on Monday before practice at Carnesecca Arena when he said, “We beat Baylor — want me to send you the clip?”

The last Selection Sunday was a bad day for the Big East teams as only three got selected to the field of 68 and St. John’s, Seton Hall and Providence were left on the outside looking in. The conference’s claim that it had been underestimated that day was validated when Marquette and Creighton reached the Sweet 16 and Connecticut won its second straight national championship.

But when the Big East had a chance to show its strength in the non-conference segment of the season, it delivered poor results beginning with the Huskies going 0-3 at the Maui Invitational. The conference went 7-8 against then-ranked opponents and two of those losses were to teams that have fallen out of the Top 25 since. As a result, the opportunities for high-profile wins in Big East play are few.

St. John’s contest against Marquette on Tuesday night was the first of three consecutive Quad I opportunities for the Storm. They have a Friday night game at No. 19 UConn and next Wednesday at Villanova.

The Storm have the toughest schedule of Big East games of any conference team down the stretch, but Tuesday night’s victory shows they will be a force to be reckoned with in them.